Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #376 - results

 

What a glorious sunny weekend, so far, for the toned down VE Day 75 Anniversary. The most moving parts of Friday, for me, were when Charles and Camilla laid their wreaths at Balmoral War Memorial just prior to the nationwide two-minute silence. They looked so lonely walking from the church down the driveway, just the two of them and a lone piper waiting at the memorial and playing as they approached (and a TV crew of course, out of shot). It meant much more than any huge parade we thought. And the Queen's broadcast to the Nation on Friday evening was just perfect.

Let's move straight into this fortnight's picks:

I couldn't let this wonderful card, made by Liz, go without being a pick. You should pop over to Liz's blog to see it opened, and also to read the story behind it. In short, a wonderful gentleman called Captain Tom Moore here in the UK has, to date, raised over £32 million pounds for our NHS. He did it by walking 100 lengths of his (not pocket handkerchief sized) garden in the run up to his 100th Birthday at the end of April. The Queen has already approved him being made an honorary Colonel - and now a lot of fingers are crossed that he will be recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June. Such a lovely gesture from Liz as well to send him a card.

Love this card made by Kitty - too funny ............. and horribly like I suspect I might look first thing in the morning! Love the coffee bean embossed panel - and what a great way to use up a lot of different coloured snippets, by making fishtail banners to pop behind the image panel. All perfectly matching to colours in the image itself as well!

And, another very similar idea popped up with this fun card made by Lesley G. It's certainly a brilliant way to use up snippets and Lesley went a bit 'above and beyond' by even adding those dear little poppers made from the teeniest snippet of silver card.  What I hadn't realised was, in our 'mail quarantine area'. sat the very same card waiting to be opened! What a lovely surprise that was.

And we had one returning Playmate after a really long absence:

I adore this card, made by Lindsey - who came back to play with us (now using Instagram) after a few years absence. It's so elegant, as her cards always are - come back soon and play again please Lindsey!

So, that's my picks and I do hope they've given you some inspiration for ways in which you can use up some of your own snippets. I could have added many, many more picks, as I always say.

We had 48 entries in total - still going strong girls!

Now for the prize draw, which is for Pink & Main's double die set called 'Hugs'  and the set of complementing sentiments called 'Hugs Needed'. And the winner is:

Jackie T

Well done Jackie! I'm extra glad your name popped out as I know you're shopping for a few people who are unable to get their own groceries - so perhaps this truly is Karma working for you. I know I probably already have your address but can you please send it to remind me to package and post your prize. Please send me your address, with your full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste or just write straight from the email onto the envelope - for speed and ease. It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course and I'll post your prize once we're finally allowed out to play again! Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

I have a strong suspicion that Len and I will be in the group deemed to be almost the last to leave lock down. But I have kept good records of winners so your prizes will reach you eventually!

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #377 - you can find it HERE. The prize is Clearly Besotted's Rainy Day stencil with their 'April Showers' set of stamps and matching dies.

Dudley is doing fine, he has a 'cool mat' which we keep in his corner of the main bathroom as he likes to lie on the tiled floor in there when it's hot. Last night before going to bed, I popped my head round the door to check on him and he was lying quite comfortably with his head and top half cooling nicely on the cool mat, even though it's big enough for the whole of him to fit on. Earlier in the evening, when we were downstairs, he was doing his impression of a star fish in the tiled hallway. He's certainly not daft when it comes to finding cool places!

I think I may have 'sussed' why he sits on his hind legs when I'm grooming him. It looks like the little tinker has worked out that possibly showing his tummy like that means I can't reach the rest of him such as his back legs, tail and rear end! I'm not sure just yet about his motives so am giving him the benefit of the doubt - it just means more moving him around and tucking him under my left arm!

And here's the little scamp, grubby face from playing in the newly mown grass, late Saturday afternoon. Playing up to the camera - he knows I have one of his favourite treats in one hand, as well as the camera in the other. I know, I know - we have a special soft doormat kept warm and dry in the garage, for him to happily doze on in the garden (to the RHS of the photo) whilst we sit and ruminate over the day's events:

Love from Parsnip, a happy wave and woof from Dudley - and of course hugs as always from me. Stay safe - it ain't over until the fat lady sings!

'Dirty Pour' technique - my way

A couple of months ago, late to the party as usual, I fell in love with a card made by Viv using the 'Dirty Pour' technique. I had lots of encouragement from Viv to give it a try, with the warning it was messy but good fun. Then I watched loads of videos on line with my mouth hanging open in horror. I already had the Yupo, umpteen tubes of acrylic paint, plastic to spread over the work area, wooden coffee stirrers (why do I always pick up a few extra of those?) aprons, latex gloves - and could obtain the pouring agent and paper cups on line. But, as I often say, I'm not truly a fan of 'messy', as well as the added factor that if there's an accident going to happen then I'll certainly be first in line.

However, after prevaricating for weeks, I finally came up with this card. Make sure you read right through to find out how I did it:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank, side opening

- snippet of black card for the 'frame' - the core and back of the black card is white so I just ran a black Pro marker round the edges

- then I trimmed my 'dirty pour' piece to just slightly smaller than the black piece of card and glued it on top using Collall All Purpose glue

- some while ago, Robyn had enclosed a lovely die cut flower in with a Thank You card. It was cut from white card so I used a black Pro marker to colour the whole flower black and then glued it onto the 'dirty pour' panel using a glue pen- thanks again Robyn! x

- next I glued the image panel onto the card front using Collall All Purpose glue again

- the sentiment is a sticker from Claritystamp's 'Word Sticker Collection - Christmas and Celebrations' - which I popped onto a little frame of the same black card, again with a black Pro marker run around the edges

- stuck the sentiment in place, using narrow pieces of thin sticky pads

- final touch - three black gems in the top right hand corner

And how did I make the 'Dirty Pour' piece? I could say it took several attempts, a full waste bin, a lot of mess to clean up, one ruined t-shirt, paint splatters on the walls and a near miss with Dudley.

However, I cheated - big time! Joanna Sheen sells two different pads of semi-glossy patterned paper called 'Faux Pour'. 24 8" x 8" papers in a pad, 2 x 12 designs. Here's a link to the pad I used. The papers are prints from actual 'dirty pours' done by Joanna - and she produced the pads for wimps like me, who love the technique but not the mess. So, if you're hovering and too scared to try the actual technique - that could be your solution, at just £4.99 per pad ☺ So, unless you already have lots of the materials needed, it's loads cheaper too.

And, as I used the 'Faux Pour' paper pad for the very first time, I'm joining in again with Darnell's NBUS Challenge #14 for May. - if only to be cheeky!

Having said that about avoiding the mess, it still intrigues me and I do admire those who bravely tackle the technique (Viv plus Bonnie, Loll and Darnell I think, to name a few) - so perhaps one Summer day I might just strip off and have a try for real, in the middle of the back garden.

Thereby scaring all the wild life away and causing mass hysteria amongst anyone unfortunate enough to see the crazy English woman working away 'naked as a jay bird'.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #377

Hi again! Things are looking up here - we finally have eggs, yeast, strong flour for bread making and even antibacterial hand soap. I'll keep this short and sweet - running a bit late once again, sigh.

Here's my snippets card for this fortnight, and let's hope the sentiment is 100% right, both in reality as well as metaphorically:

I used:

- 4" x 4" white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of  deep turquoise card stock onto the top portion of which I stencilled some raindrops (badly at that - so badly that with time against me I had to go over the droplets using a white marker pen, which didn't really work very well either). The stencil is by Clearly Besotted, called 'Rainy Day' and I used a Hero Arts 'Unicorn' white ink pad

- trimmed the blue background to 3.75" x 3.75" and set it aside for now

- then stamped umbrellas and flowers using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink, the Misti and stamps from the Clearly Besotted 'April Showers' set of stamps - which is now discontinued and replaced by a very similar set with a couple of additional sentiments added in

- coloured the stamped images using Pro markers

- then die cut the umbrellas and flowers using a set of matching dies. It looks to me as if Clearly Besotted are no longer having dies made to match their newer stamp sets - such a shame as they do work together so well for crafters with dexterity issues

- then I could work out where the stamped wording should go by placing the umbrellas temporarily onto the stencilled panel, using the Misti to place and lift the words onto the lid, removing the umbrellas and then stamping the words

- glued the stencilled panel onto the front of the white card blank, using Collall All Purpose Glue

- added the umbrellas then the flowers, using a Zig glue pen - finished!

I loved making this card mostly as the umbrellas were such fun to colour in rainbow hues (very topical right now!), although given more time I would have scrapped it and started over for a few reasons. I mucked up the rain drops - partly as the lovely stencil wasn't held in place firmly enough so it lifted before I'd applied a decent amount of ink and then I went over the droplets with a white gel pen, which spoilt the effect IMHO. Then I could only really salvage a small panel for the card front, which meant less space to work on of course. It would have been so much wiser to have applied pale blue droplets on a white background in the first place - but I needed to use more than just white snippets so opted for the blue snippet - caught out by my own over zealous interpretation of the rules there as white snippets are perfectly acceptable! (NB I edited this as it originally implied that white snippets don't count - they do, whether left white or coloured over. Sorry for the confusion Liz!). I also wanted to use/showcase all the umbrella images - and I think the end result is too crowded. Not to worry, it does the job :)

I'd seen the set of stamps, with and without the dies, being used in Blogland for some considerable time before I got round to buying them - and even then I sat on them for ages. One of our Playmates uses hers quite frequently and in a much less crowded way than I did. Hope over to Jane W's blog HERE and then just type April into the search box at the top left of her home page and some lovely examples will pop up.

Shame on me for not using them sooner - but it does mean I can enter this card into our lovely Darnell's NBUS Challenge #14 HERE. I do encourage you to join in if you haven't done so already - now is an ideal time to crack open some Never Before Used Schtuff and this current challenge runs to the end of May.

And here is the prize for this fortnight:

The stencil packet is sealed and my own stencil is tucked away again, but here's an image from the Clearly Besotted website so you can see properly what it's like out of the packet:

 

It's Clearly Besotted's Rainy Day stencil with their 'April Showers' set of stamps and matching dies.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 16th May. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you want to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' on the blog post itself - just in case you're only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

Dudley is doing fine, still totally free of matts and now allowing me to hold his front legs one at a time to groom them - much easier than the prancing act! Then, to have his 'undercarriage', tummy and such brushed and combed - he's learnt to sit up on his hind legs rather like a bunny rabbit, with his front paws outstretched as if in surrender! It looks really cute - would be so hard to take a photo as I reckon he'd sit back down if I wasn't brushing and fussing him - and I only have two hands - but I'll see if I can manage it sometime soon. Len hasn't seen him doing it yet - looks so, so sweet, but he's easily distracted so Len keeps out of the way when it's 'groom o'clock' each afternoon!

This afternoon's grooming session will be fun - Len just mowed the back lawn and Dudley's favourite game is to roll in the freshly cut grass if he can get away with it! 

Edit: After Dudley got himself covered with little pieces of stray grass, Len had decided to brush him before he came back into the house. Not long after that, Saturday, I'd lifted Dudley onto his grooming spot and remembered to say to Len, who was fetching his basket of grooming tools for me, that he absolutely had to see his latest trick. 'I know already' said Len - 'Dudley sat up like a rabbit in the garden to be brushed so I thought Mama had been teaching him some new moves!'. No secrets in this house! x

Stay safe my lovely friends. It's proving to be a long haul and so many things have had to be cancelled or put on hold for now. Many friends have had to miss Birthday celebrations, holidays and other fun things, as well as being unable to even meet new babies born into their families. Two lots of people I know have had to postpone their Weddings. It's a tough time - but one we will get through with patience and common sense. And the occasional G & T perhaps!

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip, Dudley and of course me,